


On Annoying One's Aged Grandfather

by rhyol1te



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, That's a great tag I'm so glad it exists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 10:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23969914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhyol1te/pseuds/rhyol1te
Summary: Marius and Théodule have made a bet about which one of them can annoy their grandfather more. Unfortunately, Marius is... quite bad at it. Which isn't a problem, because Courfeyrac is here to help, and ready to rope in as many people as they need to!...which should maybe be taken as a warning instead of something that'sgood,but here we are.
Relationships: Courfeyrac & Marius Pontmercy, Courfeyrac/Marius Pontmercy, it can be read either way - Relationship, or - Relationship
Comments: 11
Kudos: 26
Collections: Les Mis Big Bang: Quarantine Edition





	On Annoying One's Aged Grandfather

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](https://aporeticelenchus.tumblr.com/post/173612795314/im-imagining-theodule-pouting-like-hmph-well) post on tumblr by [Elenchus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenchus/pseuds/Elenchus)
> 
> Many thanks to C-Chan for beta reading!

Marius stares out the window at the sunset, the light from which is just barely slipping past the corner of the building next to Courfeyrac's, letting a little light into the apartment. It’s a nice sunset, he supposes - it's colorful enough, and there are only a few clouds, and it’ll be dark enough soon that his green coat will look black if he goes out to buy bread.

That had been something Courfeyrac had been slightly (well, more than slightly) confused about when they’d first met: why Marius tries to only go out at night. When Marius had explained that it was because he was in mourning Courfeyrac had stopped teasing him about it - now it’s only the occasional remark about how nice the streets around his apartment look in the sunlight. Marius doesn’t mind, though: Courfeyrac’s occasional teasing is a small price to pay for living with him, and the fact that Courfeyrac found him a job.

A job that he should be thinking about right now, he supposes, instead of staring off into the sunset.

“Probably a good idea,” Courfeyrac says from where he’s sitting on the couch, looking over Marius’s translation. Not because he can read German (Marius has tried - and failed - to teach him), but simply because he’d flopped onto the couch and loudly declared that he was bored, and wanted to read something that wasn’t about law. “Everyone likes the sunset, but it is nice to eat. What’s this sentence mean? You didn’t translate it.”

Marius looks at it, and sighs. There’s one word that the entire sentence hangs on, and he’s sure that he’s heard it before - learned it, even - but he can’t remember what it means _at all._ “I don’t know that word; I’ll borrow one of Jehan’s dictionaries when I get a chance, but…”

“That’s alright,” Combeferre says, and pulls the paper back up to eye level. “I’ll figure it out from context.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a few moments more, Marius proofreading a translation of the same article into English and Courfeyrac reading and occasionally pointing out bits and phrases in Marius’s translation that sound strange, because Marius is bad at determining when things are awkward.

“Did you ask your grandfather about marrying that girl you like?” Courfeyrac asks, and lightly tosses the paper aside. Marius watches it flutter to the ground, and then scoops it up, putting it back on his - Courfeyrac’s - desk.

Marius looks at him. “Sort of.”

“What do you mean, _sort of?_ How do you _sort of_ visit someone? You’re either in their house or you’re not.”

“I did see him,” Marius says, slowly. “I was going to ask if he would _please_ stop sending me money.”

But Gillenormand had spend an hour talking about how Theodule was a disappointment, and Marius had waited, unconsciously shredding the hem of his coat in his hands as he did so, for an opening to say _so, grandfather I know I’ve moved out and I don’t want to really talk to you anymore, but I do want you to stop sending me money, yes I am grateful, I guess, but I don’t want it, and no, I won’t be coming to visit again, not unless I have to._

“- I never really got a chance to speak,” he finishes.

Perhaps that’s for the best, though: he’d only gone on an impulse, and he really doesn’t want to confront his grandfather about the money, so maybe it’s for the best that he didn’t get a chance to talk.

“I did make a bet with my cousin, though,” he says. “After I said that I needed to go to class.”

Courfeyrac sits up, and turns to look at him. “What was it?”

Marius says, “I’m going to try to win it on my own. I’ll tell you what it was when I do.”

Courfeyrac grins. “Oooh, I bet it’s something embarrassing.”

“It’s really not.”

“Well, you’ll tell me sooner or later.” Courfeyrac lays back down on their couch, and asks, “Can you pass me your papers again?”

Marius passes him the paper. “Please don’t throw it. That’s my only copy.”

“Sorry,” Courfeyrac says. He then seems to realize that he hasn’t actually made any promises about not throwing the paper and says, “I won’t.”

…

Marius does tell Courfeyrac, sooner or later. It’s sooner, in fact, and after he’s visited his grandfather once more. He’s working on translation work again, except this time not really, because he keeps spraying ink across the page in his distraction and having to start over.

The third time it happens, he makes a high-pitched annoyed sound, and may or may not throw his pen at the paper, splattering even _more_ ink onto it, and helping exactly no one.

Courfeyrac sticks his head through the doorway to his bedroom. “What’s wrong?”

Marius sighs. “My grandfather,” he says. “I’ve _tried_ to annoy him, and yet I am _somehow_ still his favorite!”

Courfeyrac blinks. “Does this have to do with your bet with your cousin?”

“Yes,” Marius says.

Courfeyrac blinks again. Perhaps there’s something in his eye? He looks confused, so it might be. “Why -”

“Because Theodule said that if he couldn't be his favorite then he'd be his least favorite and I said that I wouldn't be the favorite grandson of an old bourgeois monarchist who I was only visiting because I need his permission to marry and then he said that he bet ten sous that he could annoy Grandfather more than I could,” Marius says in a single breath. “And then he started interrogating me about my father’s grave, but that’s not important.”

Courfeyrac blinks again.

“Do you have something in your eye?”

Courfeyrac blinks again, realizes how much he’s been blinking, and then grins. “So your cousin was annoyed that he wasn't your grandfather's favorite and challenged you into a competition to see who could be the most hated?”

“Well, I was the one to do the challenging," Marius says. "But essentially that's it. It is a matter of honor.”

"Well then," Courfeyrac says seriously, “you must win. But aren’t you going to try to get on his good side so that he’ll listen to you when you ask him to stop sending you money?”

“Well, yes,” Marius says, biting his lip. “But that doesn’t seem to be working because he just talks about how mad Theodule is. I haven’t heard him saying anything about sending money to Theodule, though, so maybe if he hates me he’ll send the money to Theodule instead.”

“Oh. Well, are you allowed to have help? Can I help you get your grandfather to hate you?”

“I suppose,” Marius says. “I’m not doing very well on my own.”

“What’ve you tried to do?”

“He was always complaining about how Theodule is always hanging around, so I decided that I’d do the same, but now when I tried to talk to him last week he just told me what a dutiful grandson I was.”

“Hmm,” Courfeyrac says. “This is serious. But I have an idea!”

…

The next day, just before noon, they attempt to steal a painting. It’s fine though, because it’s a painting of Louis-Phillippe, and it doesn’t belong to a museum, and they plan to give it back.

Right after they deface it, of course, but they _do_ plan to put it back.

“You be the lookout,” Courfeyrac says, looking around. “I’ll get the painting.”

“I’ll get the painting,” Marius says. “Then I can tell my grandfather that I stole it and defaced it, not just watched while someone else stole it, and then defaced it.”

Courfeyrac nods and grins, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “That makes sense. I’ll be by the door. If anyone’s coming I’ll yell or something and you can climb back out the window.”

Marius whispers, “Alright,” to remind Courfeyrac that they _are_ in someone else’s house, and that whispering would probably be wise.

“Great!” Courfeyrac isn’t whispering.

Marius nods, and goes into the room where (they hope) the painting of Louis-Philippe will be hanging. Marius remembers going to salons in this house with his grandfather when he was small, and remembers that there was always a painting of Charles X hanging on the wall. He’d told Courfeyrac that _of course_ the owners of the house would replace it with one of Louis-Phillipe, and really hopes that they have. Defacing the portrait of the old king just wouldn’t have the same likelihood of annoying Gillenormand as defacing a portrait of the current king.

Luckily, there’s a painting there. However, there are also people outside.

“What are you doing here?” Courfeyrac asks in a voice that’s probably supposed to be a whisper, but is loud enough for Marius to hear it. Then again, Marius has had lots of practice listening for if people are whispering around him.

“Whaddya mean?” a familiar voice says. Marius is _sure_ that the owner of that voice is putting his hands on his hips and tilting his chin upward; it’s a pose (and tone of voice) that has been directed at him many times. “You’re not supposed to be here either. And we’re here to steal a painting. Bahorel wants it, says he’s going to burn it at the next meeting.”

Marius screws his eyes shut. Of course Gavroche would be here, _of_ _course!_ Everything else with this bet has already backfired, so why wouldn’t Gavroche show up to steal the painting just as _Marius_ is about to steal the painting? In the comedy that’s somehow become his life, it doesn’t seem at all out of the ordinary.

Come to think of it, he really should be trying to steal the painting instead of listening to Gavroche and Courfeyrac argue.

He wrestles it off the wall easily enough (it does _not_ almost fall on him, because he catches it in time, thank you very much), but the painting is bulkier than he remembers. He’s not sure how he’s going to be able to carry it out of the house and down the street to Courfeyrac’s rooms without being noticed.

He looks doubtfully at the doorway. Will the painting even fit through it? It must, he decides. They had to get it into the room somehow.

He’s about to try to squeeze through when he hears a yelp, and Courfeyrac comes crashing into him. “ _Throughthewindowthoughthewindow!”_

Marius frowns. “What?”

Courfeyrac moves to grab the painting, thinks for a second, and then shoves it back at Marius. He dashes over to the window and starts trying to open it.

“Wait,” Marius says. “What’s going on?”

“The people are home and Gavroche is distracting them but they’re right by the front door so we need to go out through the window,” Courfeyrac says in a single breath, and then, when Marius takes a minute to process it, tugs on the edge of the painting. “C’mon, we need to go, if we’re arrested they might learn about Les Amis -”

Marius nods, and attempts to shove the painting through the window. It almost doesn’t fit, but he gives it another shove and it goes through, landing on the grass. Courfyerac leaps down after it, barely avoiding landing on top of it. Which wouldn’t be a tragedy - they _are_ planning to deface it - but still isn’t the thing they’re hoping to do, and now Marius is thinking about their goals instead of climbing through the window.

He looks behind him, hears Gavroche saying something, and then drops to the ground, twisting his ankle.

“Are you alright?” Courfeyrac, holding the painting asks.

Marius puts weight on his ankle. “Uh, I’ll be fine.”

Courfeyrac looks worried, but doesn’t say anything as Marius rapidly limps across the grass to hide behind a hedge (alright, his ankle might hurt, but doing anything about it would get in the way).

“Here,” Courfeyrac says, and hands the painting to Marius.

Marius takes the painting, and tries to put it under his arm. That doesn’t work, so he resigns himself to simply carrying it in front of him.“What are you going?”

“Testing for a loose bar. Fences like this usually have one, especially in places where no one really goes.”

“Huh,” Marius says, and files the information away in his memory. It might be useful later.

…

Gavroche shows up at Courfeyrac’s apartment a day later, demanding an explanation, and refusing to leave until he gets one.

“Cool,” he says, once Marius has explained. “I’m helping now.”

…

Two days later, Marius is in his grandfather’s sitting room, trying to explain how he defaced a portrait of the king.

“I stole it,” he says, “from M. and Mme. de P—— with one of my friends, who is a republican. And then we -”

“M. and Mme. de P——?” his grandfather says, and his heart sinks. “You have their painting of the king? Good job!”

“What?” Marius shakes his head.

“Their maid caught some gamins in the house recently,” his grandfather says. “Saying that they wanted to steal the painting to make a waistcoat. I’m glad that you managed to rescue it before that could come to pass! To think - had you tried to steal it an hour later, it would have been gone and a waistcoat!”

“We also defaced it,” Marius says hopefully, wondering how Gavroche has managed to become plural in the retelling.

Gillenormand nods, “well, we must all do what we must. I’m sure you’ll be able to get the ink off somehow.”

“I don’t _want_ to get the ink off, I -”

Gillenormand nods. “A trophy, then! Of how you bravely defended the king, and poured ink on his portrait in case the gamins thought you were defending it, and tried to injure you.”

Marius does _not_ sigh and put his head in his hands, because he’s not Courfeyrac. He doesn’t say two words to undermine his grandfather’s entire argument, because he’s not Combeferre. 

He’s Marius, so he says, “Actually, grandfather, we defaced it _after_ we took it.”

“Well of course you would,” Gillenormand says. “You had to take it to make sure that the gamins didn’t, and then you defaced it so that they wouldn’t use it for a waistcoat. You must feel awful, to have defaced the king’s portrait, but it’s all for the greater good.”

“I don’t, actually -”

Gillenormand pats Marius on the knee. “Of course you do, it just hasn’t sunken in yet. Now, let me tell you about what your cousin’s done…”

…

“And then he started talking about how Theodule has been going to these awful theatre performances,” Marius says, flinging his hands up, “and completely ignored the fact that we’d _defaced a portrait of Louis-Phillippe!_ Oh, and he said that you wanted to make a waistcoat out of the portrait, Gavroche. Do you still want to do that?”

“Nah,” Gavroche says, swinging his legs. “It’d be too stiff anyway; I just said that to freak out the maid. I could sell it, though. How covered in ink is it, anyway?”

“Very,” Courfeyrac says.

  
“Oh. I don’t want it, then.”

They’re in the Musain, and there is a meeting about to start, which is why it’s unremarkable that they’re overheard.

“What don’t you want?” Bssuet says, sliding into a chair next to Courfeyrac and nearly knocking over the candle on the table. Joly sits down next to Marius, and Grantaire, true to form, sits on the table.

“A painting of Louis-Philippe. Marius stole and defaced it. He’s trying to get his grandfather to hate him.”

“Gavroche! I was trying to keep it sort of secret. I just bet that _I_ could get my grandfather to hate me, not that I could get my grandfather to hate me with all the help of my -”

_Are_ they friends? He’s been coming to meetings for a while now, and they all seem nice (except Combeferre, who he’s been to mortified to talk to since his speech about Napoleon, and Enjolras who just seems slightly terrifying and kind of annoyed with Marius), and he _is_ living with Courfeyrac.

“With the help of all my friends,” Marius finishes.

No one pays his protest any mind: Bossuet says, “The old monarchist? Oh, we _have_ to do something to annoy him,” waving his hands excitedly through the air which prompts Joly to move the candle to the other side of the table lest it be knocked over.

(Grantaire immediately picks up the candle and starts tilting it back and forth, saying something about light and stars and candles and darkness, but no one’s really listening: they’re all too caught up in the idea of annoying Marius’s grandfather.)

“Well,” Marius says, putting his head in his hands, “You should think up something quickly. I have to go see him after the meeting. I wasn’t going to do anything, but if there’s something that you think I should do…”

“Wait!” Joly says. “Your grandfather hates the Romanticists, right?”

“Yes,” Marius says, confused. Is Joly going to propose that he become a Romanticist in the space of a single meeting? Marius isn’t sure that that’s possible.

He is, apparently.

“So dress like one! Jehan’s here; he’ll have something you can wear - a doublet you can borrow or something…”

Courfeyrac starts grinning. “Bahorel! Can Marius borrow your red waistcoat?”

Bahorel looks over, says doubtfully, “I don’t think it would fit him…”

“I’ve got one,” Grantaire says, in a fit of usefulness.

Joly squints at him. “Why do you have a red waistcoat?”

“Not only a red waistcoat,” Grantaire says cheerfully avoiding the question, “but a red _Robespierre_ waistcoat. You can’t let Enjolras see it, though, Marius - I’m saving it to surprise him.”

Marius nods. He has no idea why Grantaire would be saving a red Robespierre waistcoat with which to surprise Enjolras, but he’s not going to ask - it might lead to him having to talk to Enjolras, and he’s already slightly terrified of Enjolras.

“Good.” Grantaire stands up, stretches, and walks out.

Twenty minutes later, just as Enjolras has begun to speak, he returns, and says, “I’m back!”

He passes a bundle of red fabric to Marius, ignores Enjolras’s pointed comments, and refuses to answer any questions about what, exactly, he just gave Marius.

When asked, Marius says, “uhh, something I left here at the last meeting? Yeah. Something I left here and Grantaire just gave it back to me.”

“You’re a bad liar,” Bossuet whispers. “I’ll go ask Jehan if you can use his scarf and hat.”

Enjolras sighs, loudly. “Can we _please_ get back to what we are here to accomplish?”

…

The terry-cloth hat, scarf, and the red Robespierre waistcoat do _nothing._ Gillenormand just complains about Theodule, who smirks at Marius on his way out.

…

Jehan and Bahorel are added to their little group. Club Annoy Gillenormans is growing, and now barely fits into Courfeyrac’s apartment comfortably.

“You could just punch him?” Bahorel says, lounging on the sofa. “Or start a fight in front of his house?”

Marius goes pale. “Uhhh…”

“What about this?” Jehan says, picking up a letter left on Marius’s desk.

Courfeyrac leans over. “What is that? I haven’t seen it?”

“Oh,” Marius says. “It’s an invitation to some costume party. I think I was given it by mistake.”

“Nonsense,” Jehan says. “It sounds like something your grandfather will hate, so we’re all going.”

Courfeyrac starts grinning. “Imagine if we got Combeferre and Enjolras to come!”

…

They don’t manage to convince Combeferre and Enjolras to go, but Jehan, Bahorel, and Courfeyrac do. Unfortunately, that just means that they’re there when Marius realizes that there’s been a mistake, and this is not at all the sort of party that would annoy Marius’s grandfather.

There’s some trouble over the fact that there are four of them and one invitation, but Bahorel invents a new law that requires that Marius be allowed to bring three friends to any party, and they’re let in eventually.

(“Blegh,” he says, afterwards. “That was too lawyer-ly. Never again.”)

Once they’re inside, the trouble starts.

“I think that she went to the same salons as my grandfather,” Marius whispers to Courfeyrac.

“Maybe she’s trying to annoy someone as well,” replies Jehan, who is dressed in a truly eye-searing costume complete with a hooded cape, a plad doublet, and greenery sticking out of his pockets. Marius isn’t sure what he’s supposed to be, and doesn’t really want to ask.

“Go talk to her, then,” Bahorel says. “Maybe she’ll have tips!”

Unfortunately, she does. She has three tips, and they are: 1) No, she is _not_ trying to annoy anyone by going to this perfectly respectable party 2) the fact that there is some red on her dress does _not_ mean that she is a Republican, and 3) there aren’t any Republicans here because it’s a costume party in a _monarchist salon._

“Oh,” Marius says, wringing his hands. “Oh, uh, then I’m not supposed to be here.”

She looks at him. “What?”

Marius turns, goes back to where Jehan has been holding court - or maybe holding a council, because ‘holding court’ does have some monarchist connotations, but anyway, he returns to the corner where Jehan has started giving an impromptu lecture on Romanticism and poetry and says, “ _This is not a costume party!”_

Courfeyrac looks slightly confused, so Marius thinks back to what he said a few minutes ago and says: “Well, it _is_ , but it’s not the kind of thing that’s going to annoy my grandfather and we have to go because he’s right over there!”

“Oh,” Courfeyrac says, which is something that’s much more along the lines of what _Marius_ would usually say. “Well, what if we went over and talked to him and scandalized him that way?”

They try. They really do, but they don’t even get to talk to him: the salon is crowded by now, and they keep running into people who remember Marius (which is _awful_ because he remembers almost none of them), and then Jehan sees Gillenormand leaving, and they try to run after him but they only manage to leave him with the impression that there are a flock of foolish Romantics chasing him, not that his grandson is disgraceful.

At least, that’s what Theodule tells Marius later.

Marius isn’t sure quite how reliable Theodule is, as a source of information, but he’s not been wrong with gossip before, so he decides to trust him.

…

Their next plan, according to Courfeyrac, is probably going to be a stroke of genius. It has to be, to offset the failure of their earlier ones.

“A lighting bolt of wisdom from the gods,” Grantaire adds, “so that we might have some fun before we are truck down for our hubris in attempting to annoy one of the most un-annoyable people that I have encountered. And I have encountered a lot of people, and most of them have called me annoying, or something stronger. Perhaps if we simply surrounded your grandfather with a thousand of me, Marius, then we might be able to break through his shield of causing us mishaps so that -”

Courfeyrac starts to grin, slowly. “What if we got you and Enjolras and Combeferre and Bahorel maybe and got them to try to convince your grandfather to stop being a monarchist!”

“Combeferre?” Marius says, remembering everything that happened when he tried to talk about Corsica.

“It’ll work,” Joly says.

…

“No,” Enjolras says. “We have more important things to do.”

“Why do you want to give the money away, anyway?” Combeferre says.

Enjolras looks at him, and then at Marius. “Because it’s from a monarchist, right, Marius?”

Marius nods.

“We’re supposed to be teaching students to read in addition to plotting revolution,” Combeferre says. “So why don’t you just give the money to us so that we can use it for that program, if you don't want it?”

“It’s from a _monarchist!”_ Enjolras hisses.

“And wouldn’t it be nice to use that money for something more worthwhile than portraits of Louis-Philippe?”

“Yeah,” Marius says.

“Fine,” Enjolras says. “We can use it.”

…

When he learns that he’s won the bet, Theodule looks very smug. 

“Told you,” he says.

Marius rolls his eyes. “Well, at least the money that he sends me is going somewhere now.”

“Wait, he sends you _money?!”_

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Comments (no matter how short!) and kudos make me supper happy! <3


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